Large e-commerce and retail websites may incorporate complex software coding methods to log shopper information. Such shopper information may include, for example, information regarding the approximate physical location of the shopper, an amount of time spent by the shopper on each e-commerce web page, and entry and exit web pages for the shopper, linked from one product web page to another. For example, the physical location of the shopper may be collected via the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the shopper's computer. Analysis of this shopper information is useful for improving the marketing potential of a retail website to consumers.
A single web page within a retail website may include information regarding one of a group of products and/or services. The retailer may use feedback analysis from web page visitor logging information for the single web page to determine popularity of the product and/or service corresponding to the web page. This analysis enables the retailer to adjust product availability, display areas, and special offers, to improve sales performance of each individual product. For simplicity in this disclosure, the term “product” is used herein to refer to either a product or a service or combination thereof. The term “retailer” is used herein to refer to a person or entity who offers products for sale via the Internet, including “E-commerce website owners,” “online retailers,” and “merchants.” The term “shopper” is used herein to refer to any visitor of a retailer website, regardless of whether the visitor intends to make a purchase via the retailer website.
An analysis of webpage logging information can determine the shopping patterns, unique interests, and probable behavior of shoppers as a part of their online activities. Further, it is possible to analyze product performance during different times periods, such as during the day, during the evenings, over the course of a period of days, weeks, and/or months, and/or during holiday seasons. Extrapolating the analyzed information provides significant information for defining product placement and marketing requirements in future sales. For example, one shopper may shop for products based on current deals, while another may focus on the best reviewed or most popular products. Also, a shopper might shop for accessories tied to products via related hyperlinked product web pages. For purposes of simplicity in this disclosure, discussion of “product web pages” herein should be deemed to include both web pages that specifically relate to a particular product and web pages related to product accessories.
Large retail websites generally are capable of investing in complex visitor logging and analytics algorithms because the owners have the capability, knowledge, and resources to create and maintain such a system. However, smaller retailers do not generally have sufficient resources to utilize such systems in connection with their retail websites.